Harlem Tone

The language his grandfather uses his on his death bed in 1932 tells of the internal conflict at how he lived his life. The grandfather talked of “keeping up the good fight” (Ellison, 418), and “our life is a war” (418); “I have been a traitor all my born life” (418). His advice to his son is to not live as passive and meek as he did. And “learn it to the younguns” (418), to pass it onto his kids, including the protagonist. This same inner conflict is passed on to the narrator. At least until graduating high school, the protagonist lived as his grandfather did, the evidence is in his oration on graduation day. Noted in the oration was the statement “humility is the secret, indeed the very essence of progress” (419). However, he caught the attention of the school superintendent, and was invited to deliver the same speech to the town’s most influential citizens. Initially the Protagonist considered this opportunity to draw the two communities close thinking the speech was a “triumph for the whole community”

It took him a while, but eventually he learned the meaning of his grandfather's advice. He was doing the acts that his grandfather meant, when he referred to "the good fight." However, there was one major difference issue that he didn't understand. In trying to impress the high-standing white members of his community, he allowed them to take advantage of his ambition. He wanted to impress them because he felt that they were the ones who mattered, and only their respect and admiration counted. This was the difference. His grandfather's advice was meant to have the "younguns" put on a mask when with the whites. Their opinion did matter, because it was them who controlled society and them who determined the quality of life in the black community. But the agreeing and sucking up that was done had to be artificial. His inner-self must be preserved, otherwise he would be nothing more than a slave to the whites. The "good fight" is the battle to maintain his own dignity, and also earn the praise of the whites. This is the only way to maintain one's self-respect and survive (or maybe even advance) in a white-dominated society.

Thesis statement: Hughes wrote this when Jim Crow laws were still imposing an bitter segregated society in the South. There were still lynchings of innocent African Americans, there was no Civil Rights Movement, there was no Civil Rights legislation yet, and Blacks couldn't eat at lunch counters in the South. Harlem, however, was not at all like the South in terms of blatant, legal segregation. However, racism was very much in place in many places in America. Blacks were second class citizens, their children attended schools that were ill-equipped, and the dreams of Black citizens were not being realized in this period.

Vivid imagery in his speech have affected listeners because he describes how African Americans like him were inferior, how they were treated and how they were consider less than humans. For example, “Fellow-citizens, above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear

By creating powerful imagery to depict the treacherous treatment slaves are enduring, he floods the audience with shame. He provides them with a chance to recall their moral standards and compare them to slavery. He questions them to evoke the truth that slavery is never justifiable. The denouement of his speech is that it is patent to his audience that celebrating freedom with slavery existing is atrocious and want to eradicate

Langston Hughes was the leading voice of African American people in his time, speaking through his poetry to represent blacks. His Influence through his poems are seen widely not just by blacks but by those who enjoy poetry in other races and social classes. Hughes poems, Harlem, The Negro speaks of rivers, Theme for English B, and Negro are great examples of his output for the racial inequality between the blacks and whites. The relationship between whites and blacks are rooted in America's history for the good and the bad. Hughes poems bring the history at large and present them in a proud manner. The injustice that blacks face because of their history of once being in bondage is something they are constantly reminded and ridiculed for but must overcome and bring to light that the thoughts of slavery and inequality will be a lesson and something to remember for a different future where that kind of prejudice is not found so widely.

“A great wave of humiliation and shame swept over me. Shame that I belonged to a race that could be so dealt with; and shame for my country, that it, the great example of democracy to the world, should be the only civilized, if not the only state on earth, where a human being would be burned alive.”(137) Because of that day, the narrator made a decision that he felt was best for him at the time, which was to let the world make their own perception of him. “I argued that to forsake one’s race to better one’s condition was no less worthy an action than to forsake one’s country for the same purpose. I finally made up my mind that I would neither disclaim the black race nor claim the white race; but that I would change my name, raise a mustache, and let the world take me for what it would; that it was not necessary for me to go about with the label of inferiority pasted across my forehead.” (139)

In this he reaches out to all backgrounds and religions to try and unite them in the common cause. Claiming that they have all suffered in this together. And that to be aware that it is election year and that the white man will smile at you most when he needs you and look down upon you when he doesn’t. This speech resonated because I could not help but think of this year. 2016 is an election year. Yes we have come a long way but not as far as we had hoped. We are still facing the race debate. And many of the battles and obstacles that Malcom X faced then, are still being faced

However, once it is revealed that Forrest Carter is really Asa Carter, a white supremist who was active in a Ku Klux Klan group and admittedly guilty of performing hate crimes against African Americans, the tone of the story suddenly shifts. There is a question for the reader: why would he write this story this way? It is sincerely doubtful that after all this time the man would change his ways, especially by ‘converting’ into a minority like a Native American. Thus, this ‘autobiography’ – story – loses its charms, and is nothing more than further propaganda in favor for white supremacy and the oppression of minorities.

Ralph Ellison’s short story, Battle Royal, is mainly an account of the African American struggle for equality and identity. The narrator of the story is an above average youth of the African American community [Goldstein-Shirlet, 1999]. He is given an opportunity to give a speech to some of the more prestigious white individuals. His expectations of being received in a positive and normal environment are drastically dashed when he is faced with the severity of the process he must deal with in order to accomplish his task.

Dreams are important to everyone. Some little girls dream of being a ballerina while some little boys and even teenage boys dream of being a major league baseball player for their favorite team. In the famous drama A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, dreams have a prominent role. The title, even though there’s never a raisin in the drama, is important because: it refers to a poem written by famous poet Langston Hughes and it relates to the dreams of each of the characters.

At the time in which this speech was presented, there was injustice being brought upon the African American community, so much so that John Lewis decided to speak out against it leading to his speech to transpire. The purpose of Lewis’ speech at Washington is to illustrate to others how the African-American community are discriminated and to demand equal civil rights for everyone. In his speech, he uses rhetorical devices to create a stronger impact towards the audience such as emotional appeal to deepen the meaning of purpose behind his words to connect with others going through the same situation. He implies anecdote to improvise his standing view with evidence of past events, allusion, and syntax towards the events that involved violence

Langston Hughes was a successful African-American poet of the Harlem renaissance in the 20th century. Hughes' had a simple and cultured writing style. "Harlem" is filled with rhythm, jazz, blues, imagery, and evokes vivid images within the mind. The poem focuses on what could happen to deferred dreams. Hughes' aim is to make it clear that if you postpone your dreams you might not get another chance to attain it--so take those dreams and run. Each question associates with negative effects of deferred dreams. The imagery from the poem causes the reader to be pulled in by the writer's words.

When reading poetry, it can often be difficult to interpret the exact meaning of the poem the author was trying to transmit. A reader must learn to construe a poem without getting confused on what the author was trying to convey. We must scrutinize the work so that we may understand it better. In Langston Hughes “Harlem,” to analyze what this poem is trying to interpret we must understand line for line. The poem has eleven lines and all but one is asking a question. In each line except line seven, the last syllable stressed. Six of the seven sentences in the poem are questions. All of the sentences except the first and the last contain similes using like. Line three rhymes with line five; line six rhymes with line eight; line ten rhymes with line eleven. Lines four, seven, and eleven begin with or. Lines three, eight, and ten begin with like. The narrator is asking these questions to have the reader envision the lurid analogies to evoke the illusion of a postponed dream. One must also uncover the hidden meanings that stated in this poem. Written in 1951, Harlem addresses one of the most common themes of the time, inadequacies of the American Dreams of African Americans.

The Harlem Renaissance sought to revitalize African American culture with a focus on arts and literature and creating socioeconomic opportunities (Harlem Renaissance). This temporal setting, predominantly the influence of the Harlem Renaissance, of Hughes’s life explains the purpose of Hughes’s writing: to express the oppression of African Americans and the imperfections of Hughes’s America and to heighten African American morale during his life through his writing.